Huyen My, a resident in Hanoi, described her struggle to secure a ticket.

"Yesterday afternoon I arrived at 3:30 p.m. It was still sunny and the line was quite long. Seeing that there was only about an hour left before ticket sales closed, I thought I'd have to wait a long time, so I decided to go home and come back earlier today," she said. "I waited from 9 a.m. until about 10:30 a.m. before I could finally buy a ticket. The wait was quite long, but the atmosphere was fun."

Huyen My predicts a 2-0 victory for Vietnam, with hopes that star players like Nguyen Xuan Son or Nguyen Dinh Bac will score.

For 19-year-old Nguyen Cong Phong, the experience was less enjoyable. He arrived at 8 a.m. hoping to purchase seven tickets for his family.

"When I arrived, the scalpers kept saying tickets were sold out, but I knew they were lying," Phong said. "The weather was bad, and the scalpers hoarded too many tickets [to sell later for higher prices], so people couldn't buy much."

To manage the crowd, security only permitted 4-5 people into the ticketing area at a time. Ticket counters only accepted cash payments and there were no bank transfer options.

The VFF officially issued tickets in four price points: VND200,000 (US$7.61), VND300,000, VND400,000, and VND500,000. The premium VND500,000 tickets were completely sold out in the morning session.

Previously, VFF only planned to sell tickets online from July 17 to 25. However, due to unexpectedly high demand, they decided to add direct sales starting on July 28.

Singapore currently lead Group A with six points after securing back-to-back victories against Cambodia and Timor-Leste. Vietnam sit in second place with three points following their thrashing 7-0 opening victory over Timor-Leste.

Coach Kim Sang-sik's squad know that a victory on home soil with the fan advantage will bring them level on points with Singapore, placing them in a comfortable position to secure a semi-final berth.

Tran Phuong, who traveled from the West Lake area, opted to wait in line rather than deal with scalpers.

"Outside the ticket area, it was quite lively, with scalpers constantly offering tickets at higher than the listed price," he said, adding that buying tickets wasn't too difficult, but the heavy rain and narrow entrance limited the pace.

Predicting that the top-tier tickets were gone, Phuong settled for three VND400,000 tickets for him and his friends.

Unlike Phuong, some impatient people sought to buy tickets on the black market outside the venue, while others bought them to resell for a profit.

Along Le Quang Dao Street, dozens of scalpers constantly offered tickets at higher prices. The VND500,000 tickets were being resold for around VND900,000 while the VND400,000 tickets were being pushed for VND600,000 to 700,000. Even the lower-tier tickets in stands C and D saw a markup of around VND100,000.